


Third Time's the Charm

by sara_wolfe



Series: Fifty First Dates [4]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Fluff, Humor, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-12
Updated: 2012-03-20
Packaged: 2017-11-01 21:11:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/361296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sara_wolfe/pseuds/sara_wolfe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Excuse me," Steve interrupted them, feeling faint. When Danny shot him a questioning look, he asked, "Did I really just get volunteered to babysit?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the prompt from shoot_the_curl: "No ordinary day."
> 
> This one's a bit longer than usual, so I'm posting it in parts. The next part will hopefully be up later tonight.

'Meet me at Rachel and Stan's place.'

Steve stared down at the text message in confusion. He checked the display one more time just to make sure that the message really was from Danny, and then he hit the buzzer at the gate. The gate swung open a few seconds later, and he figured that they'd been expecting his arrival. 

He pulled up to the house, parking behind Danny's Camaro. As he got out of his truck, the front door of the house opened with a bang, and Grace flew down the stairs to slam into him in a full-contact hug. 

"Uncle Steve, Uncle Steve, Uncle Steve!"

"Hey, Grace," Steve said, grinning in the face of the little girl's enthusiasm. 

"Danno's inside," Grace told him, grabbing his hand and pulling him toward the front door with a surprising amount of strength. "You're coming today, right?"

"Coming to what?" Steve asked, feeling completely clueless. 

He didn't get an answer, because as soon as he stepped into the house, he was greeted by the sound of a cat being murdered. His hands immediately flew up to cover his ears, and Grace grimaced as well, nodding in agreement. 

"Mom says the baby has colic," she confided, and Steve stared down at her in disbelief. 

"All of that noise is coming from an infant?" he asked, incredulously. 

"Hardly an infant. He's four months old," came an exhausted-sounding voice from ahead of him, and he looked up to see Danny standing in the doorway, jiggling the still-screaming baby in his arms. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he was pacing monotonously back and forth, holding the baby to his chest.

"You called?" Steve asked, waving his cell phone and Danny, and after a moment, he got a tired nod. 

"Need a favor," came the short answer. "See, Grace's class is going on a field trip, today, and Rachel and I were going to chaperone. And then last night, Rachel called because she and Stan haven't slept in a week, and Charlie won't stop crying-"

"What do you want me to do?" Steve asked, praying that the answer wasn't going involve Danny handing him the screaming baby. He was terrified of the possibility of dropping the kid – and of the three people who would kill him if he did. 

"Grace's class is now short one chaperone," Danny told him, as he turned smoothly in the middle of his pacing and headed back toward the doorway. "Want to come?"

"You know," Steve called to Danny's retreating back, "when you said you wanted to do something on our day off, chaperoning Grace's field trip wasn't really what I had in mind."

"Oh, come on, Uncle Steve!" Grace spoke up, eagerly, before Danny could say anything. "We're going to the aquarium. It's going to be really fun!"

Steve made the mistake of looking down at the little girl before he answered. He was sunk as soon as he saw the beseeching expression in those big, brown eyes. He'd seen the same look on Danny's face, a time or two, and he couldn't help but wonder who taught it to whom. 

"Don't you want to come, Uncle Steve?" Grace asked, and, damn it, her lower lip was quivering just a little bit, and he could have sworn he saw a glint of tears in her eyes. He'd always been helpless in the face of crying women, and crying girls were no exception to that rule. Especially crying girls who called him 'Uncle Steve' and acted like he was some kind of superhero.

Steve sighed, and that was apparently all the answer that Grace needed. The tears disappeared as quickly as they'd appeared, and she shot him a wide, beaming smile. She ran off to grab her backpack with a happy cry, and out of the corner of her eye, Steve saw her give Danny a not-so-subtle high-five as she ran past him. 

"You planned that," Steve accused him, going after Danny. "You're a terrible person, Danny, setting the power of your daughter on unsuspecting victims."

"Who?" Danny asked, an innocent look on his face. "Me?"

"Yeah, you," Steve grumbled, feeling a bit like he'd just been yanked into a childish argument – and he was losing.

"Just for that," Danny said, "you can hold him while I get a bottle ready."

Then, to Steve's utter horror, Danny placed the screaming infant into his arms. 

Steve gaped wordlessly down at the child while Danny quickly and efficiently positioned his hands around the baby. He swallowed hard and resisted the overwhelming urge to beg Danny not to leave him alone when he stepped away to the refrigerator. Looking down at the baby, Steve pasted a weak smile on his face and gingerly attempted the jiggling motion that Danny had been doing, earlier. 

To his amazement, Charlie blinked up at him and stopped crying. 

Danny whirled around, staring at him in stunned silence. Overhead, Steve could hear the pounding of feet, and then Rachel burst into the kitchen, a frantic look on her face. 

"Danny, the baby-" she cried, but then she stopped short when she saw Steve holding her son. "He's stopped crying?" she asked, as she sagged weakly against the doorframe. 

"He's stopped crying," Danny echoed, incredulously, staring at Steve and the now-silent baby. Then, his gaze sharpened and he put the bottle he'd been fixing down on the counter as he marched over to Steve. "He's not a bomb, Steven," he scolded him, as he repositioned his hands. 

"I'd be more comfortable holding a bomb," Steve grumbled, freezing when Charlie snuggled against his chest with a soft sigh. "Um, what's he doing?"

"Looks like he's falling asleep," Danny commented, idly. He shot a look at Rachel, who was nodding, slowly. "You're thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I am," Rachel replied, mysteriously, "and it's brilliant. You convince him; I need sleep."

Giving Grace a hug, the frazzled-looking woman stumbled out of the kitchen, presumably heading back to her bedroom. Steve stared at her departing back, and then over at Danny, who had gone back to fixing the bottle. 

"Um, what just happened here?" Steve asked. 

"Mom just volunteered you to babysit," Grace informed him, as she came into the kitchen, her backpack slung over one shoulder. "Danno, we've got to get going, or we're going to be late."

"Don't worry, Monkey," Danny reassured her. "We'll get there in plenty of time."

"I don't want to miss the aquarium," Grace insisted, hopping eagerly from one foot to another. "Danno, come on!"

"Excuse me," Steve interrupted them, feeling faint. When Danny shot him a questioning look, he asked, "Did I really just get volunteered to babysit?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story seems to be running away with me. It was only going to be two chapters, but after this one came out, I'm honestly no longer sure how long it's going to be. 
> 
> But, it should be one hell of a date.

"Excuse me."

Danny had never heard that particular tone in his partner's voice, before, and that had him turning around. What he saw took him by surprise. Steve, still holding Charlie like someone else might cradle a live grenade, had a look of absolute terror on his face. Danny had seen him face down things would make even the most hardened soldier hesitate; hell, he hadn't even blinked in the face of a possibly-murderous tiger during their last disastrous attempt at a date. 

But now, confronted with a baby, he looked like he wanted to pass out.

Danny raised an eyebrow, silently asking for an explanation, and Steve cleared his throat before he tried to speak. 

"Did I really just get volunteered to babysit?" he asked, hoarsely. 

"More or less," Danny told him, and Steve's eyes went wide. 

"More or less?" he echoed, incredulously. He shot Charlie a look, like he thought the baby was going to wake up and immediately try to jump out of his arms. "What does that mean, more or less?"

"Stop panicking," Danny said, trying to sound soothing. "Don't worry, Steve, I'm going to be there with you the whole time."

"There with me?" Steve repeated, feeling like he was missing something, and then he groaned in disbelief. "Danny, you're chaperoning Grace's field trip."

"Yep," Danny agreed, as he found Charlie's diaper bag and started packing it, working almost on autopilot.

"Then, how-" Steve demanded, clearly panicking at the thought of taking Charlie to the aquarium. 

"Babe, would you relax?" Danny interrupted him, sounding exasperated. "You're going to be fine."

"Why me?" Steve asked, coming dangerously close to whining. 

"Because that is the first time in a week that Charlie has been quiet," Rachel said, from the doorway, and Steve jumped, his grip instinctively tightening on Charlie to keep the baby from moving. Charlie didn't even react to the movement, still sleeping soundly against Steve's chest. 

"Please, Steven," Rachel went on, pleadingly, and Danny blinked at his ex-wife's use of Steve's first name. "Charlie won't sleep, he barely eats, he just cries and cries – Grace was never this fussy."

"There's fussy," Danny spoke up, "and then there are the banshee screams this child has been emitting for the last twelve hours. Steve, nobody has slept in this house since he started crying. And that includes me, when I came over last night." He sighed, dragging a hand through his already-unkempt hair. "I spent all last night walking around trying to get him to fall asleep."

"Why me?" Steve echoed, plaintively, and Danny shot him a small grin.

"Probably because you're the first person to hold him who isn't stressed out," Danny replied. "He can sense that you're calm, and he's responding to it."

"I am far from calm," Steve told him. 

"Calmer than any of the rest of us, then," Danny amended. "Steve, even I'm begging you, now. Please do not put that child down."

He shot Steve the same, pleading look that Grace had turned on him, earlier, knowing that his partner was all but helpless to resist. And just like he'd hoped, Steve sighed, giving a tiny nod.

"All right," he agreed, softly. "But, I can't keep holding him like this, all day."

"Won't have to," Danny told him, as he grabbed the chest carrier that Rachel had brought out from the bedroom. "Here, put this on."

"How?" Steve demanded, with an eye roll, and Danny frowned, thoughtfully. 

"Here," he muttered, and then he maneuvered deftly around Steve to get the carrier strapped onto his chest, and get Charlie into the carrier. 

The baby woke up once, making grumpy noises until he was settled against Steve's chest, again, and then he closed his eyes and promptly went back to sleep. Steve stared down at him in amazement, and then shot Danny a silent look. 

"When I said that no one was sleeping in this house," Danny told him, "I meant it. Charlie hasn't been sleeping, either; he's exhausted. I wouldn't be surprised if he slept nearly the whole day."

Steve looked down at Charlie, again, pursing his lips. "Stay asleep, please," Danny heard him whisper, a little desperately. 

"Danno!" Grace's cry floated in front the other room. "Let's go!"

"Coming, Monkey!" Danny called back, glancing over at Charlie to make sure that they hadn't woken him up. He shouldn't have worried; the baby didn't even stir. 

Danny slung the diaper bag over his shoulder, and as he and Steve passed Rachel in the doorway, Steve hesitated behind him. His partner said something too low for Danny to make out, but he heard his ex-wife's reply, clearly. 

"If I didn't trust you, Commander," she said, quietly, "you wouldn't still be holding my son. I know you'll keep him as safe as you do Grace when she's with you."

"For the record," Danny said, as they walked out to where Grace was waiting impatiently by the Camaro, "I've trusted you with Grace's life since the day you met her."

Steve stared at him, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. 

"Let's get going," Danny said, cheerfully, as he opened the passenger door of the car for Grace.

They had a bit of a dilemma when it came to Charlie and the car seat, and they spent an uncomfortable fifteen minutes listening to him fuss angrily because he'd been separated from Steve. 

"You know," Steve remarked, breathing a quiet sigh of relief as Charlie calmed down when he was strapped into the chest carrier, "I really don't think that Rachel and Stan are going to be happy if their son won't let me leave at the end of the night."

"He'll let you leave," Danny assured him. "He's just tired, and grumpy, and he feels safe with you. He'll stop being so clingy once he gets some sleep."

"And then someone else can hold him?" Steve asked, a slightly desperate note in his voice, and Danny chuckled. 

"When he stops screaming," he assured his partner, "I'll take him off your hands."

They walked into the school, meeting up with Grace's class in their room, where the teacher started explaining the rules of the field trip. Danny and Steve joined the rest of the chaperones at the back of the room, Steve getting no few stares from the other parents. Steve, for his part, just curled his arms protectively around Charlie's sleepy form ignoring the other parents. 

Danny couldn't ignore them, though, not with the way some of them were so blatantly staring. One man, who looked rather familiar, was eying Steve like he'd sprouted a second head, and finally Danny couldn't take it any longer. 

"Problem?" he asked, softly, and the man smirked at him. 

"Is crime so dead that the cops have to rent themselves out as babysitters?" he asked, and Danny recognized the man as a defense lawyer to worked to clear many of the criminals they struggled to put behind bars. 

He was pretty sure that he had a voodoo doll in the man's image stashed away somewhere in his desk. He was also fairly certain that he was going to be adding a few more pins to the doll after the day was done.

From the glint in Steve's eyes, it was clear he recognized the other man, as well. Danny had seen that look, before; it never boded well for anyone involved. 

"Hardly a babysitter," he drawled, shooting the man a lazy smirk. "More of a bodyguard, really."

"Bodyguard?" the man scoffed, incredulously. "Just who is this kid?"

At the front of the room, Grace's teacher pointedly cleared her throat, glaring at the man until he shrank under her gaze. Steve chuckled, softly, elbowing Danny and nodding at the teacher. 

"Someone's in trouble," he muttered, under his breath. 

"Yeah," Danny retorted, just as quietly, "us, if you don't stop talking."

After another few minutes, the teacher finished her instructions to the students, and they herded the kids out to the bus and got them loaded up. They were the last chaperones on the bus, and Grace's teacher stopped them before they could get on the bus. 

"I'm Ms. Kamaka," she introduced herself, shaking both their hands. "Detective Williams, I wanted to thank you, again for chaperoning. I see we have a couple of guests?" she added, pointedly. 

"Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett," Steve introduced himself, before Danny could say anything. 

"Oh," Kamaka said, drawing the word out. "So, you're Steve."

Steve nodded, slowly, leaning over to Danny. "Should I be worried?" he asked, in a loud whisper. "Because that sounds like I should be worried."

"Grace raves about you," Kamaka reassured him, with a smile. "About both of you, actually. She's positively enamored of her Danno and Uncle Steve."

"Enamored, huh?" Steve asked, with a grin of his own. 

"And, who is our guest?" Kamaka went on, gesturing to Charlie. 

"Grace's baby brother," Danny answered. "It's been a long week, and this is the first time he's slept in days." He waited for the woman's protest, but it never came. Instead, she just smiled down at Charlie and then gestured them onto the bus ahead of her. 

"I think we just dodged a bullet," Steve muttered, under his breath, and Danny could only agree. At least, until the next time Charlie woke up and started screaming. 

They sat down in the bench behind Grace, surrounded by a bunch of little girls that immediately started cooing over Charlie as soon as they saw him. Danny was able to keep them from bothering the baby during the trip to the aquarium, and once they'd arrived at their destination, the kids were all too excited by the prospect of the animals to give a second thought to Charlie. 

"Now, everyone," Kamaka was saying, as the last people got off the bus, "I want you all to remember what we talked about. Have respect, be courteous, and be on your best behavior."

"Isn't she repeating herself?" Grace asked, in a hushed whisper, and Danny leaned down to answer her. 

"From what I've seen of some of those boys," he replied, nodding at the boys at the back of the group, "it's something that needs to be said a few times before it sinks in."

Grace giggled, turning her attention back to her teacher. Kamaka was just giving the students one final admonition to behave themselves, she turned the excited kids loose on the aquarium. 

"You ready?" Danny asked, in an undertone. 

Steve eyed the kids sprinting ahead of them, an apprehensive look on his face. Then, the apprehension vanished, and he squared his shoulders with determination.

"Bring it on."


	3. Chapter 3

After the initial rush into the aquarium, the chaperones had corralled the kids into a more-or-less orderly line. Kamaka had arranged for a guided tour for the class, and the docent had taken them into one of the educational areas for a half-hour presentation. The kids had mostly been well-behaved during the presentation, and to Steve's unending relief, Charlie had slept soundly through the entire thing. 

The docent, a young man who'd introduced himself as Kevin, had then led the group through the exhibits. They'd already gone through the indoor exhibits, including the sharks – which the kids had loved – and had circled through most of the outdoor exhibits. Now, they were headed to what Kevin said was his favorite exhibit – the monk seals. 

Danny had ceded control of his camera over to Grace early on in the trip, and she'd taken a couple hundred pictures so far, and showed no signs of stopping. Steve was fairly certain they'd be able to reconstruct their path through the aquarium from Grace's pictures, once she was done. 

As Steve walked along the path, he kept an eye on the kids that he and Danny had been assigned to watch over. All of the kids had become excitable during the last hour, but these boys were more than most, and Steve figured that he and Danny had been put in charge of the kids in order to keep them in line. 

Luckily, Steve had a secret weapon in the form of Charlie; he'd discovered that none of the kids wanted to be responsible for waking the baby up, especially once Grace had described in great detail her baby brother's piercing cry. 

When they arrived at the monk seals' habitat, Kevin waited for the eagerly-chattering kids to quiet down so that he could begin his presentation. When that didn't work, he clapped his hands to get their attention. When _that_ didn't work, Danny rolled his eyes at Steve, put two fingers to his lips, and let out a piercing whistle that cut through the kids' noise. 

"That's enough," he said, as the noise subsided into mutters. "Let's settle down, okay?"

Obediently, the kids turned their attention back to Kevin, who began his presentation on the monk seals. Steve eased through the kids to where Danny was standing over by the fence. He leaned against the fence next to his partner, one hand automatically curling around Charlie to support him, even through the chest carrier. 

"Well?" Danny prompted, as they listened to Kevin's speech with half an ear. 

"This isn't going as badly as I thought it would," Steve admitted, getting a grin from Danny. "But," he added, "I still wouldn't call this a date."

"What if I buy you lunch?" Danny asked, teasingly, and Steve chuckled. 

The sound woke Charlie up, and the baby made a grumpy noise as he opened his eyes, peering up at Steve with a curious expression on his face, like he'd never seen him before. Given how quickly he'd fallen asleep earlier that morning, he might not have even registered who'd been holding him the whole time. 

"Hi," Steve said, awkwardly, as he looked down at Charlie, and the baby let out a huge yawn. "Um," Steve added, glancing over at Danny when the baby didn't immediately fall back asleep, and Danny laughed at the look on his face. 

"He's not a bomb," he reminded Steve, an amused look on his face. 

"I distinctly remember you promising to take him off my hands once he woke up," Steve reminded him.

"It amazes me," Danny remarked, as he unhooked the carrier from around Steve's chest, "that you can face everything that you have without blinking, but one little baby sends you running for the hills."

"I haven't run, yet," Steve grumbled, but he breathed a quiet sigh of relief when Charlie was safely in Danny's arms. 

"Yet," Danny echoed, with a smile. "Why do kids make you so nervous, Steve?"

"Not kids," Steve said, defensively, "babies. They're just so tiny, and breakable – how'd you keep from dropping Grace all the time?"

Danny leaned over like he was about to impart some great secret. "By holding onto her like she was a live bomb," he whispered, and Steve cracked up. 

"I heard that," Grace said, making Steve jump, and he looked down at her scowling face. "Hey, Danno," she went on, glancing at her father, "can I take Charlie over to see the seals?"

"You need to be careful," Danny cautioned her, as he strapped Charlie's carrier onto her chest and tightened the straps. "Stay away from the edge."

"I will," Grace promised, solemnly. "I just want to show him the seals."

Steve watched as Grace made her way slowly over to where Kevin was standing. He looked down as Grace proudly showed the seals to her baby brother, pointing out the sleek shapes cutting through the clear water. He glanced over at Danny to see a look of unmistakable pride on his face. 

"It's probably different when you have your own kids, though, right?" he asked Danny, who nodded. "I mean," Steve went on, without thinking, "I'll probably be better at this whole thing once it's-"

 _'Once it's our child,'_ he'd been about to say, but he swallowed the words before they could escape. His and Danny's relationship was far too new to bring certain topics into the equation, even if he couldn't imagine spending the rest of his life with anyone else. 

'This thing between us is either going to go very, very right, or very, very wrong,' Steve realized. 'I don't think that there's going to be a middle ground with us.'

And he so desperately wanted things to go right. He'd been able to make a clean break, in the past, with relationships that hadn't worked out, but he couldn't walk away from Danny. Didn't want to walk away from him. 

"Be better at this whole thing once, what?" Danny prompted, and Steve flushed. 

"Nothing," he said, even though his partner shot him a suspicious look. "Absolutely nothing."

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

After the field trip was over, they got the kids back onto the bus and back to school about an hour before the last bell rang. Danny and Steve took Charlie to the park across from the school to wait for Grace, and when she got out, they all went for shave ice. 

"Can we go to the beach?" Grace asked, as she carefully nibbled at her mango cone. 

"Maybe another day, Monkey," Danny told her, as he loaded Charlie into his car seat. "Charlie's still not feeling very well, remember? We need to get him home."

"Okay," Grace agreed, easily. "We'll have fun at home, right, Charlie?" she asked her brother, and the baby giggled when she tickled his stomach. "Hey, he's laughing, again."

"Yeah," Danny agreed, shooting Steve an affectionate look. "Your Uncle Steve's got a knack, all right."

"Thanks for cheering Charlie up, Uncle Steve," Grace said, happily. "Now I don't have to sleep with ear plugs, anymore."

"Couldn't have everyone sleep deprived while Charlie screamed," Danny shrugged, when Steve looked over at him. "Ear plugs meant that Grace would get a full night's sleep."

"Not a bad idea," Steve agreed. 

When they arrived at Rachel and Stan's house, Grace bounded out of the car and sprinted up to the house, calling for her mother. Danny and Steve followed at a more sedate pace, Steve holding Charlie in his arms. Danny shot his partner a look, barely holding back a grin. He would never get Steve to admit that he'd gotten attached to the baby, but it was plain to see from the look on his face. 

Rachel met them at the front door, looking a hundred times better than she had that morning, and Danny wouldn't have been surprised if she'd slept the entire time they were gone. She took her son from him, a smile gracing her features when her little boy beamed happily at her. 

"He's like a whole new Charlie," she said, relief in her voice. "I should enlist you to babysit more often, Steven."

"Don't be surprised, then, if his first words are 'hand grenade'," Danny pointed out, and Rachel frowned, like she was rethinking her comment. Steve looked like he was hoping for that, as well. 

"Perhaps not," Rachel decided, and Steve let out a quiet sigh of relief. "So, would you like to stay for coffee?"

Before either of them could say anything, Steve's cell phone went off, with Danny's ringing a second later. 

"Kono," Steve confirmed, as Danny looked down at the display to see Chin's name on the screen. 

"Guess that's a no, then," Rachel said. Shifting Charlie to her hip, she surprised Danny by hugging Steve, and then him. "Be careful, both of you," she told them. 

"We will," Danny promised her, and then he knelt down to catch Grace as she rushed him in a hug. 

"You'll be safe, right, Danno?" she whispered, as she clung to him, and Danny held her tightly against him. 

"I promise," he said. "I'll be safe."

"You, too, Uncle Steve," Grace said, sternly, as she pulled reluctantly away from Danny and hugged Steve, as well. 

"We will," Steve said, echoing Danny's sentiment. "We'll be careful, Grace."

Then, the two of them headed back out to the car. The drive to the crime scene was mostly quiet, with Steve driving while Danny got details of the latest crime from Chin and Kono. When they got to the docks, where the body had been found, Danny hesitated before getting out of the car.

"What's up?" Steve asked him. 

"I wanted to thank you for today," Danny told him. "I know this wasn't an ideal date-"

"This wasn't any kind of date," Steve retorted, but he was smiling when he said it.

"How do you figure?" Danny asked. "I mean, compared to the other two attempts, there was no hail of bullets, no runaway tiger-"

"No kiss," Steve interrupted him, shortly. Danny raised an eyebrow at him, questioningly, and Steve plowed on. "Dates end with kisses. I may be out of practice, but I do remember that much."

Danny laughed; he honestly hadn't been expecting that. Then, in a move Steve clearly hadn't been expecting (although, how could he not, with a lead-in like that?), Danny reached out, grabbed the front of Steve's shirt, and pulled him in for a long, slow kiss. 

"Happy, now?" he murmured, when they separated. 

"Ecstatic," Steve replied, just as quietly. "But, that still wasn't a date."

Danny rolled his eyes as he opened the glove box and pulled his gun out. "Come on," he said, as they got out of the car. "Let's go catch bad guys."


End file.
